And Later
by thegirlfrommod4A
Summary: For a long time, Max comes and goes. Until he doesn't.


**I probably should have just put all of my Mad Max oneshots that I own no rights to in the same place, but oh well. Too late now. This takes place after the other two.**

It is five years, three months, and two days between when Max leaves for the second time, having brought back Angharad and Nux, and when he returns to New Citadel. Furiousa has marked each day that goes by as part of managing the city, but it is only once he returns that she realizes how big of a number it is. Almost 2,000 days.

Her scouts had been worried, initially, when they saw him coming in. People have been coming ever since they rebuilt Citadel, but lone men usually spelled trouble. When he had gotten to the gates, her sentries had questioned him ruthlessly, and Furiousa can picture him grunting and shrugging in response to their questions. Eventually, he had told the guards to alert her that a fool was at the gates. One of them had come to get her, and she had very nearly laughed. She had told the boy to invite Max in. She can picture his smirk at her use of his name.

He stays for 10 days, long enough for the wives, the sisters, to fuss over him and show him what they have built. Long enough for Furiousa to tinker with his brace and his body, and for him to do the same to her. Long enough to meet Angharad the second. He leaves in the middle of the night.

* * *

The next time he comes back, one thousand and three days later, he announces himself as the fool, not as Max, before the guards even begin their questioning. They let him in without question and he stays for a full month. Part of this might be because the girls hardly speak to him for a solid week, to angry about his abandonment. When he slyly asks Furiousa on night four why she isn't joining them, she tells him she knew he was coming back. He grunts, and, in what is becoming a rare occasion, she can't interpret it.

By the end of the month, a now seven-year-old Angharad has decided that he gives the best piggy back rides in the city, with her mama looking on with raised eyebrows and a smile. He has argued with Toast about which guns the sentries at each station should be using. He has learned his way around Capable's garage, and helped Cheedo to fix up a bigger building, now that more and more people are coming to learn. By the time he leaves again, Max has become a familiar face, not just a familiar name, within New Citadel's walls.

He still leaves in the middle of the night, but this time he leaves a note.

* * *

It is exactly 500 days later that Furiousa hears on her afternoon rounds that the fool is back. She continues on her way, figuring that he will find her when he is ready. Instead, she discovers him snoring on her bed when she returns to her room after dinner. She snorts in amusement and lies down beside him. He stays for three months, give or take some days.

Angharad is happy to see him, and demands to be carried around as much as possible, because next time she'll be too big.

Toast and Capable show him what they have built, and he, with their permission, tinkers and refines and helps them draw up sketches to try next.

Cheedo puts him in front of a room and has him pass on his knowledge while he is around to do so. He smiles the slightest bit, and then sits with her late into the night poring over the complex math that she saves for herself.

The Dag insists that he tell them before he leaves so she can make sure he has freshly picked green things, especially with how much time he has found to spend in the dirt.

Furiousa twists her mouth as she realizes that while the sisters have accepted his inevitable leaving, she herself has begun to dread it slightly. On night fifty, she tells him he could stay, and is mildly surprised he is still there when she wakes up, much less for another month and a half.

He leaves at sunset this time, as departing during the day would interrupt everyone's schedules. He goes with a hug and loaded guns and a rebuilt car and books and green things. He leaves with a look over his shoulder at her.

* * *

She expects him back sooner this time. There, she'll admit it, and she knows she isn't the only one. Somewhere around the one year mark, she overhears Toast telling the guards to look for a fool. The Dag has a harder time explaining to Angharad why Uncle Max isn't back, and Capable starts working on a project in the back of the garage. Something fast, she tells Furiousa. Something to show off is written between the lines. Cheedo starts stockpiling the books she doesn't quite understand.

When he still isn't back six months later, they put Angharad to bed early and pass around a bottle of harsh tasting alcohol and allow themselves a night to be spectacularly angry and a little bit sad.

Six months after that, Furiousa is back to worrying before bed, though she lectures the girls about it whenever they ask. She is angry at him for leaving when he had started to act like the Citadel was home, angry at him because Angharad is the only one who can bear to say his name, though it has become a common one among the people, and furious at him for That Look. But she worries because, the world being what it is, the fact that he hasn't returned may mean that he can't. She is angry at herself for worrying.

* * *

It is three years to the day after the Look that he rides back up to the gates. He is on a motorcycle, with no guns or books, no green things or hugs. By some ridiculous and twisted bit of whatever fate is left in the world, he introduces himself as Max just as she comes by to finish her evening rounds. She stand in front of the bike with her hands on her hips.

"You're not Max." she declares. "You're a Fool."

He looks her dead in the eye and doesn't say anything. She doesn't move.

"Are you staying?" she asks.

His eyebrows raise.

"The girls can't do this anymore." she says.

He blinks.

"I can't do this anymore."

She is secretly very proud that her voice doesn't waver.

"Yeah." he says, "I know."

His voice doesn't break either, he just says the words like they're the most obvious things in the world, like everyone should know them, like they shouldn't even have to be said even after three goddamn years.

She crosses her arms over her chest and raises her own eyebrows.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." In that same damn tone. But really, what did she expect?

"Fine." she sighs.

She walks around and climbs on the bike behind him, gripping his waist with both her flesh and mechanical arms.

"We have to get the girls." she says, and places her head between his shoulder blades. She feels a low laugh shake through him, echoed by the starting of the bike. She lets the tension drain out of her shoulders as they rumble through the city. And later, much later, she will allow them to relax even more in his hands.

 _So yeah, Max is back. Therefore, this will probably be it for this universe, unless the plot bunny jumps me. Reviews are more than welcome!_


End file.
